Clave Castle, Northumbria, 1273
“I neither want nor need a wife.”
Garrick Helmsley crumpled the missive in his hand and tossed it unceremoniously into the fire. He walked to the small window that overlooked the North Sea and opened its wooden shutters.
“Her messenger waits below for a reply,” Sir Conrad said.
The iron bars did little to detract from the view, which he’d sorely missed during the years he’d spent in battle. The great chamber, a private room behind the hall and just up a set of stairs, had always been one of his favorite rooms in his ancestral home, which was why he’d led Conrad here for their private conference. Though more sparsely furnished than most, with a table for dining and a hearth in the corner, it was the view that brought him here. The steep decline beneath him was scattered with flowers and plants stubbornly refusing to allow the surrounding rocks or the salty gales off the North Sea to stifle their growth.
A wife.
“Garrick?”
His friend was persistent, but he could be more so. “Remind me why you’re here?”
Having come to Clave as a boy to foster with Garrick’s father, he’d never really left. Conrad navigated the room, coming to a stop beside him. “Clave is much better-looking than Brookhurst. Besides, when I return, my parents are likely to marry me off to some poor, unsuspecting gentlewoman.”
Conrad laughed at his own jest, but Garrick was not inclined to laugh along with him.
“Then you should hurry back to Brookhurst at once to remind your parents of how irritable you are,” Garrick said. “Maybe they’ll reconsider.”
“Tell that to the buxom maidservant in my bed. She found my presence quite charming last eve.”
Though the hour was early, Garrick had no doubt his friend was telling the truth. Well, he wouldn’t remind Conrad that the girl had only turned her attentions his way after Garrick rejected them.
“Tell her yourself,” Garrick said.
“Gladly, but your mother’s messenger awaits in the hall for an answer. Since I have to pass through there on my way back . . .”
“Leave it be, Conrad. Mable is attending to the messenger.” Clave’s steward, as always, was extremely efficient.
Conrad rolled his eyes. “The poor man will be finished breaking his fast shortly. He claims to have traveled through the night, and your mother’s instructions were quite clear.” Conrad adopted a tone Garrick supposed was to mimic his mother’s voice. “‘Deliver that message, my dear boy, and make it quick. The earl’s daughter will not be delayed. Tell my son—’”
“Enough!” Normally amused by his friend’s antics, Garrick couldn’t abide them at the moment. “I woke you for counsel, not for a poor imitation of my mother. Who, I’ll have you remember—”
“Recently lost her husband. I know, Garrick.” His tone softened. “Your father was a good man.”
“The best,” he amended.
“And died how he’d have wanted. In battle, fighting alongside his son.”
The two men fell silent. Unfortunately, Conrad’s silence didn’t last.
“You pulled me from a soft feather bed for my opinion?” Conrad asked, eyebrows raised.
“I just said as much.” He began to pace the chamber, crossing the room in long strides only to turn around and retrace his steps.
“Marry her.”
Garrick’s fists clenched. He continued his pacing until Conrad stuck out an arm to stop him. He knew that look. His friend had finally dropped the jovial facade. He was ready to offer serious advice.
Though different in many ways, in temperament and looks—Garrick was dark and tall, Conrad his lighter counterpart—both men loved the borderlands and would do anything to protect them. And they shared an appreciation for women. On that, they were similar. Which was one of the reasons for Garrick’s hesitation now.
“The thought of an acquiescent noblewoman trained since birth to be docile and proper.” He shuddered. “Give me a bathhouse in Acre and—”
“This”—Conrad indicated their surroundings—“is not the Holy Land. It is your inheritance. And an earl needs a bride.”
Garrick refused to accept the finality of his words.
“A bride, perhaps. But certainly not a Scottish one. Nor one I haven’t met.”
He hated Conrad’s shrug.
“I asked for your counsel, and you joyfully condemn me to life with a foreigner.”
Garrick had already known before sending for Conrad. He had known the moment the messenger handed him the missive. His mother had hinted at this, and now that his father was dead, the only way to secure his Scottish inheritance was to take a bride—one whose power was greater than his uncle’s.
Conrad had simply confirmed the life sentence he’d expected. Now that he’d returned, it was his duty to Clave Castle, to his mother, to the earldom, to bring home a suitable bride.
“Having a bride does not preclude enjoying comely women in your bed,” his friend said, clapping him on the back as if his words offered anything by way of comfort.
Garrick stared out the window for another long moment. Just a few months earlier, he’d stood next to his father contemplating a very different view. The Crusades had been tearing apart families for years, and now the bloody battle had woven its way into his life in the worst way possible. “I’ll not dishonor my wife that way.”
“Well then, old friend, why are we standing here? You have a wife to claim. And a mother to console. And if you’re to be married soon, Clave’s village is waiting. I will stay here, but you should take James with you.”
James, the young knight who had been sent years ago to foster with Garrick’s father, much like Conrad, hadn’t left. James’s father had betrayed the crown by betraying Montfort in his rebellion against King Henry, Edward’s father. The knight had lost his inheritance, as many had because of the uprising, but Garrick did not hold the son responsible for his father’s transgressions.
“I do believe Clave can manage without you,” Garrick said.
“But can The Golden Fox? Which reminds me, do you think it wants patrons this early? Being that you’re to be married soon.”
“I did not say I was marrying the Scottish woman.”
Conrad pulled him toward the door. “You didn’t need to.”
###
“Sara, would you please speak to him?”
Emma looked from her beloved sister-in-law, the Countess of Kenshire, to her stubborn brother. He was arranging his wife’s pillows, as usual, fixing them into just the right position. If only Bryce and Neill could see the former border reiver fussing over his wife as such . . .
Emma looked down and smiled at the littlest Waryn in her arms, his face round and perfect.
“Geoffrey, I agree with your sister. There are plenty of men who could escort her.”
Emma could have kissed Sara. But Geoffrey still didn’t seem to be convinced.
“If she were traveling in England, I’d agree. But across the border? Nay, not without me. Or one of the boys.”
It was that very attitude that made Geoffrey so exasperating. He thought her very much a “girl” even though she’d been a lady for some time now. Nor would her brothers enjoy hearing themselves called “boys.”
“Well, neither of the boys are here, and you can’t leave Sara and the new babe, nor would I want you to do so. Which means I’ll not be able to see Clara when she needs me most.”
The twitch in Geoffrey’s jaw told her he was becoming impatient.
Good.
“Emma.”
Oh, that tone. It made her feel like a child all over again.
“You can see Clara in the spring, before the babe arrives. Why you need to go off to Scotland in the middle of winter—”
“Shh,” she said, rocking Hayden, whose eyes had just popped open. “We’ll speak on this later.” He would not relent at this moment, so prolonging the argument would not further her case. The best strategy was to talk with Sara. “Didn’t Peter say you were needed in the solar?”
The steward had interrupted their conversation twice in the lord and lady’s private chambers—a privilege afforded only to a servant of his position.
Her brother leaned down to kiss his wife on the cheek. Her smile reminded Emma of one of the reasons she adored the countess so much. For some unfathomable reason, Sara loved her brother mightily.
He then kissed Hayden, winked at her, and left the bedchamber.
Brute.
“Emma . . .” Sara chided.
“I didn’t mean to say that aloud.” Sara was looking at her with that combination of I understand he can be overly protective and be nice, he’s your brother and he loves you.
“I just don’t understand him. We have a large enough retinue of men to take all of Northumbria. Not, of course, that we would do such a thing. He trusts none of them on a few days’ journey north?”
Even so, Emma was finding it difficult to stay angry. Every time she looked down at her new nephew, she wanted to kiss him a hundred times. He slept peacefully in her arms, and Emma’s eyes welled with tears at the thought of leaving him. Though he was just a few weeks old, she loved her new nephew beyond reason.
“I’m sorry, Sara. This is my argument with Geoffrey, not yours.”
Sara swung her legs around, startling Emma.
“What are you doing? Geoffrey—”
“You are not the only one exasperated with your well-meaning brother.”
The birthing had been difficult, and although the countess did not credit the midwife’s admonishment to stay abed until she “healed properly,” Geoffrey did. Each time Sara attempted to move about, he seemed to sense it and swooped in like a mother bird to tuck her back into bed.
“I do adore Adele, but some of her methods are . . .”
The women looked at each other and smiled. They’d discussed this before, and neither of them was sure who had suffered more during Hayden’s birth: Sara or Adele. The midwife had prayed so hard and so often to St. Margaret that it was a wonder the saint herself didn’t make an appearance just to shush the old woman. When the babe’s head finally appeared, Adele broke down in tears of relief, convinced the combination of her prayers and rose oil had made it so.
Granted, the old woman had delivered Lady Sara herself many years earlier and loved the countess like her own, but Emma would have expected a midwife with so many years of experience to be more accustomed to difficult births. Luckily Sara had done so as well and knew she would be just fine.
Sara reached for her son. “Can you please tell Faye I’d like to dress?”
Emma reluctantly handed Hayden to his mother.
“If I have to stare at this canopy any longer . . . I’m quite ready to join the living once again,” Sara said.
If her sister-in-law was representative of the dead, they were a comely group indeed. Though Sara’s cheeks were still a bit rounded from pregnancy, Emma could not envision a lovelier sight. Her sparkling eyes and smile spoke of good health and high spirits. It pleased her to no end that some said they looked like twins. Emma had grown up with three brothers, and it was still a dizzying pleasure to have Sara, who had come to feel like another sister.
“As for visiting Clara . . .” Sara rocked Hayden as she had done earlier. “I do believe with the right companions the journey will be perfectly safe. Let me speak to your brother.”
“Sara, nay, ’tis my problem—”
“Which makes it mine as well. Clara would be overjoyed to see you, and your brother is simply being stubborn. I will speak to him.”
“Thank you.” In truth, it was what she’d hoped for, and she couldn’t help but smile. No one was more tenacious than Sara when she wanted something.
“You’d best ask Adele to begin knitting the blanket now.”
Adele, despite her crooked fingers, was skilled at more than just birthing babes. The blanket in which Hayden was now peacefully bundled was one of many she’d made for the new heir to Kenshire.
“You believe he will allow it?” Emma asked.
“I’ve not known you to want for something without getting it. And as for me”—she smiled—“I have some influence over him as well.”
Between the two of them, Emma had no doubt her poor brother would relent before long.
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